Finally, although I can now directly boot without adding anything to the linux / boot / vmlinuz line (just purge xerver-xorg-video-radeon), other issues can accumulate slowly : at each dist-upgrade a new package is ignored, such as samba, then cups, then resolvconf, then dbus etc ...

Certainly, this version of aptosid is not for me : too many problems that bode nothing well for more ...

Yet another surprise: I reboot and I am with a screen labeled "GRUB>" and nothing else.

I saw that behavior on a USB stick installation, when trying to boot on an old Dell Optiplex 270 computer. Retry a couple of times -- it might decide to boot. I don't think it is any issue with aptosid or grub-pc -- I think it is just a combination of old hardware, old BIOS, and new USB device.

do you use radeon driver? or fglrx?
did you install firmware-linux-nonfree ?

if I remember right, your problem is caused by missing firmware kms disabled. (radeon.modeset=0)
To install it, you have to add non-free to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list, do apt-get update and then apt-get install firmware-linux-nonfree.

you should have kms enabled (=radeon.modeset=1 or nothing in kernel params) and firmware-linux-nonfree installed.

christophe60_fr

Post subject:Posted: 05.01.2012, 18:39

Joined: 2011-06-08
Posts: 14

Status: Offline

Well, I use radeon driver and firmware-linux-nonfree is installed.
As I no longer need to add anything to boot, so I assumed (wrongly ?) that kms was ok.
Still, no possible textmode.

snvv

Post subject:Posted: 12.01.2012, 16:01

Joined: 2010-09-13
Posts: 331

Status: Offline

From a shell as root try init 3

If you get a blanc screen press once enter and you should get the login prompt.